Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The first year of the second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- including a tranche of racist and anti-Semitic chats by prominent Young Republicans.
Nationally, a sharp rift among state groups has emerged, POLITICO’s Jacob Wendler reported. Chapters are divided on how to respond to the chat — with some staying silent and others immediately denouncing the rhetoric.
The Arizona Young Republican Federation, for example, which had endorsed Peter Giunta — the New Yorker who joked “I love Hitler” in the chat — to lead the Young Republican National Federation, lambasted what it called “mob-style condemnation driven by political opportunism or personal agendas.” Giunta, who lost his job as chief of staff to state Assemblymember Mike Reilly, has expressed regret for the remarks but also questioned whether they were altered.
In New York, the state GOP’s leaders voted unanimously Friday to pull the Young Republicans’ authorization to operate statewide, POLITICO reported. Kansas — home to two chat members — disbanded its younger arm earlier last week.
In Vermont, state Sen. Sam Douglass announced he will resign his post effective today at noon, POLITICO’s Jason Beeferman reported. He was the only sitting elected official in the group chat, and his wife was also in the Telegram group.
“I know that this decision will upset many, and delight others, but in this political climate I must keep my family safe,” Douglass said in a statement.
Beeferman also reported that elected Republican leaders outside the chat are split on how they respond.
Rep. Elise Stefanik denounced the incendiary messages when reporters reached out for comment before POLITICO published its initial blockbuster story. But after Vice President JD Vance derided criticisms of the chat as “pearl clutching,” she pivoted to attacking Democrats.
Geroge Packer at The Atlantic:
Having been given permission from the country’s most powerful person, the Young Republicans received forgiveness from its second-most-powerful. Vice President J. D. Vance refused to condemn their words, explaining: “I really don’t want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke—telling a very offensive, stupid joke—is cause to ruin their lives.” But the authors of the texts have already grown up—they’re men in their 20s and 30s, climbing the rungs of Republican Party ladders in Kansas, Arizona, Vermont, and New York, firm in the belief that the viler their language, the higher they’ll go. One is already an officeholder.
For Vance, ethical judgment has become a pure matter of partisanship, to the point of overcoming his most personal bonds. When a DOGE member was revealed to have posted “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity” and “Normalize Indian hate,” Vance—married to an Indian American—scoffed at the ensuing outrage and demanded that the offender be rehired. But when private citizens anywhere said something ugly about Charlie Kirk, the vice president went after their livelihood. Once morality is rotted out by partisan relativism, the floor gives way and the fall into nihilism is swift.
